YouSaid · the spoken record

Grover Norquist

lines on the record
79
first
2017-05-25
most recent
2017-05-25
sittings or episodes
1
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podcast

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  1. “Long as you guarantee and protect the people in the coalition their primary vote moving issue, their part of the team, they don't walk away if they don't also get that they have other theories they may want to talk about or work on, but you go around the room. The Second Amendment folks, the gun owners, hunters, people want concealed carry permits, they want to be left alone with their gun rights. They don't want you to have a gun. They don't want you to be a hunter. They don't want to tell you what to do. They want to be left alone. The homeschoolers want to be able to educate themselves. They don't knock on your door and tell you to homeschool. They want the government to make anybody else homeschool. The businessmen and women who want to be left alone to practice and run their own professional and business lives, self-employed people, independent contractors, taxpayers. If you vote on this issue, what you want is to be left alone by the government. You can ask people secondary.”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Very good question, and a whole bunch of people on the right don't understand this. This is not an easy concept. What makes the meeting work and what we realized as we were doing it is that everybody in the center right is there because on their vote moving issue, not all issues, their vote moving issue. What they want from the government is to be left alone. So you have some on the quote-unquote religious right, evangelical Protestants, conservative Catholics, Orthodox Jews, Mormons, Muslims, people from the most important thing in their life is practicing their faith and passing it on to their children. Now, if you then ask them questions three, four, five, and seven, some people will tell you, well, I don't like what people in San Francisco do on Saturdays. What do you vote on? I vote on when I be left alone so that I can go to heaven because I understand scripture and everybody else gets it wrong.”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Yes and no, but you have to plan ahead. So Candace Boyer, who works with me, you send her an email say Candace, I want to talk about this on this Wednesday. It gets on the agenda. I, during the week, when I run into people, whenever I see somebody with a good project or a good thing, I say, could you present on that on a Wednesday? So I'm always looking for more people to present. And the best way to get somebody to join the meeting is to have them present, look around and go, I want to be with these guys more often. And then they stay. So that's how you accumulate.”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Yes, that's right. That's the one week we won't be there. But what makes that meeting? Work is that people talk for three minutes. We now have thirty people present for three minutes and an hour and a half about what they're doing, not what their hopes and aspirations are, not how deeply they care about something, not whining about why somebody else didn't do their homework for them. What are they doing moving forward, not backward? And that keeps the conversation about the future, about action and what you're doing. And it also creates a virtuous cycle where the more people are doing, the more they present. The less people are doing, the less they present. So in the room, the more active people are talking more often.”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “We started the first Wednesday meeting in early nineteen ninety three. Somebody had suggested to me that we should have a coalition to think how to try and stop Hillary Care from being implemented when Bill Clinton was president, and Hillary was going to be in charge of managing more government control of health care. And as we put it together, we started about 20 people, and we realized that if you were going to stop Hillary Care, you had to slow everything down. And so the drive for the stimulus spending, who would help us fight that the Second Amendment questions, all of the various parts of the Conservative movement were brought together, and within a couple of months, we self-consciously had a broad center right coalition, and about forty people. Today it's somewhere between 150 and 180 meet, and we meet every Wednesday.”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “And I thought, that's okay stuff, but she had many opinions beyond the importance of liberty. And I think that in the political sphere, I'm only interested in liberty, how you lead your life is a separate issue that you should be free to lead your life as you wish is step one. Step two is people giving you advice on how you should lead a good life as opposed to a free life.”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “You get to be an officer right away. The Harvard Sons of Liberty was the Harvard Libertarian Association when we elected Lita Cosmodes, now a leading sociobiologist up at Stanford, to be president, she said, could we call it the Harvard Libertarian Association instead of Sons of Liberty? And so, yes, we did. So I was political. In college, somebody was telling me, yo, you're one of these Ayn Rand people, so I figured I'd better go read.”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “I think so. When I was at Harvard Undergrad seventy four to seventy eight I joined the Harvard Republican Club and the Conservative Club, which had like three members, and the libertarian association.”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “So I was an anti-communist and from that backed into the broader questions, the role of the state versus the individual and how much liberty people should have and how much control the state should have. And you started at the pretty bloody edge of that question when you're looking at the Soviet Union. And then how does it move as you move towards more liberty and less statism?”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Well, I became a conservative versus anti-communist. I was watching the role of the Soviet Union in the world. My public high school public library in Weston got rid of all of their right-of-center books. So the I Led Three Lives by Herb Filbrick was sold off for nickel and I picked it up at the sale. Witness by Whitaker Chambers went for about a quarter. Purge all this stuff out of the public library.”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “My grandmother was from Switzerland, Stein on Rhine, and grew up in St. Louis and married my Swedish grandfather, which was a big scandal because all the Swedish girls in Jamestown had already laid claims and you went off and married a foreigner from St. Louis. And so they They were more concerned. And she would get human events and send four of them up, I guess it was a weekly publication, and every month they'd get four mailed up to our house, my parents' house. And I would read them and go, I didn't see that on CBS. What's going on here?”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Oh, yeah. And George Wallace, George Washington lost a bunch of battles. But that wasn't the purpose Reagan never suggested a tax increase. He did get backed into a few, yeah. He didn't have the house.”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Everything used to be bipartisan back in the fifties because the Conservative Republican and the Conservative Democrat would argue with the Liberal Republican and the Liberal Democrat. So all the votes on taxes, spending, regulation, civil rights, everything was bipartisan because the two parties didn't shirts and skins didn't tell you anything. And as the two parties have sorted themselves out, there isn't a Republican in the House or Senate who'd vote for a tax increase. There isn't a Democrat who wouldn't. The issue I tend to focus on on taxes is the one that most clearly divides the two parties. There used to be moderate Democrats during the Reagan years who would vote against certain spending, but none of them would vote against a tax increase. Or on labor union issues, stuff like that. They might have or trial lawyers even, but not on taxes.”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “No, no, he's just a pre Reagan Republican Being a Republican used to mean you were born north of the Mason Dixon line. And if you were south of the Mason Dixon line, you were a Democrat. And it didn't tell you anything about your worldview on taxes or spending or the size or scope of government or foreign policy. But during Reagan's lifetime, the two parties have sorted themselves out to be much more coherent vehicles for expressing people's wishes. And if you have a more limited or constrained view of what the government ought to be doing to, People or four people, then you tend to be a Republican if you have a more expansive view of the role of the state and a more limited view of individuals' roles, then you're Democrat. And the two are separated to the point where”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Dad does I've seen it. It's cool. And I think it actually got it signed at one point. Some teacher got it to do it. Yeah, they were moderate Republicans. The Rockefeller may be unfair. They”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Well, my dad once did a picture of Thomas Dewey, who was Rockefeller before Rockefeller. Yes. And on a typewriter, you do it with the shading. So now you do it on computers with little symbols or letters. He did it with a typewriter. For doing.”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Yes, this is true. I don't think you could get away with it if you were 35 So it's been fun, and I've just done a fair amount of it from time to time, just performed it. Georgetown for 16 minutes at their first annual White House correspondence dinner. So they're going to mimic the White House correspondence dinner. They have an institute of politics in Chicago.”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “So it went well. It went okay so that I felt comfortable. I did it many years in a row because if I couldn't get enough Republican congressmen or other folks from the center right, then I'd have to perform. So I did it a number of years. Senator Spector performed. He told four or five of the longest shaggy dog dirty stories of Dirty jokes you've ever heard in your life. But when you're 70 years old and you do that, it's funny. What's great fun”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Yes, first of all, everybody is as much an expert as you are on what's funny. Matter of fact, So, if you talk about something you know, and they don't get it, might be their fault. But if I'm telling jokes and they don't think they're funny, it's not their fault. It's your fault. And also it's tough to practice. Practice in front of who. So you have to have your own sense of what works. Your staff will either laugh with you or at you, but tough to get feedback from a handful of staff. Or laugh.”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “And the late senator Spector from the Pennsylvania. I was in charge of getting Republicans to come on because I didn't get as many Republican congressmen senators. And they did ask me to do it when they heard I was looking to do some stand-up. They said, how about you like to perform? And I had five months to go. So I said, okay. And so I got ready. And it was okay. I did well. Didn't embarrass myself. And then they said you were.”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “So we had congressmen, senators Lieberman won one year he beat Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Hitchens never forgave him for that He used notes which wasn't fair”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “No, I started doing comedy because a friend of mine is now at C span, he said, I'm going to go do five minutes at the DC improv. Would you like to come? I said, sure. So I went with him. And he did his five minutes. And I said, well, how do you get onto the stage as an amateur to do five minutes? How do you sign up for something like that? He says, if you can come up with 15 jokes, half of which work, I'll get you on stage. I said, I'll start. So I had a 3x5 card I kept in my wallet and I'd write down things as they occurred to me. And then there's that funniest celebrity in DC which performed for maybe twenty years and they would get DC celebrities which are people you see on C-SPAN.”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “I was a student because I was told you're supposed to. I played soccer in the fall, wrestling in the winter and track in the spring, but also worked because I worked with the drama coach, who was the speech coach or the speech teacher, he would let me be in each of the plays. I could be in the musical even though I wasn't really much of a singer. So I would get a non-singing part of the musical. And then I would get a part in the Shakespeare play that they did in the fall. So it's fun. It's good practice.”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “I went there starting in kindergarten, went through high school, all in Weston. And yeah, I like the schools. It's a fairly interesting dynamic, a division between people who took it very seriously and people didn't take schoolwork very seriously. And we had the folks like to play sports and the drama people and the...”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Yeah, and it was largely attached to stuff from school. They kept wanting to do speeches, but he practiced all of us on speech for speech class or drama class.”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Well, the school asked us in third, fourth grade to do thirty second speeches and then one minute speeches. And so my father, who'd done a lot of speech and debate in his high school, out in Jamestown, New York, would get you to prepare. My first talk was on wolverines because, of course, it was Sunday night, and I informed my dad, yeah, I'm supposed to give a speech tomorrow. And we just watched something about wolverines on the Walt Disney show. So I had to give a speech on Wolverines. I went to dictionary and looked up more stuff on Wolverines. The first time you do it, it takes about five minutes. You get down to 30 seconds. So it was a lot of practicing. And it was very helpful for my dad to patiently let you do it again and again and again. And pretty soon you were saying more in 30 seconds than the first time out you were doing a couple minutes.”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Yes. Steve Jobs talks about Dr. Land as his hero, and Poyd was very exciting. It was a research lab attached to a company. And my dad used to say one to write a book entitled How to Bankrupt a Monopoly.”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “Before we get there, Yes, he did a bunch of things in manufacturing and at one point ran quality control for a number of years and then purchasing.”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Yeah, Weston is about twelve miles due west of Boston. There was a hotel pub where you would stop and have lunch on your way to New York. You'd get 12 miles and that was lunch a while ago. My parents grew up in Michigan and western New York, Jamestown, and moved around and then basically stopped around in Boston. And I grew up in Weston, went to grade school and high school there, and then college and”

    2017-05-25 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 150 - Grover Norquist · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source